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These sorts of comparisons inevitably don't mean much because there's just too many factors that are different between Utah and the states the author compares t

These sorts of comparisons inevitably don't mean much because there's just too many factors that are different between Utah and the states the author compares them to. It helps upward mobility if you start out better off, and Utah has the the fifth richest bottom quintile in the nation (See http://scorecard.assetsandopportunity.org/latest/measure/state-income-quintiles-acs http://scorecard.assetsandopportunity.org/latest/measure/sta...) in a place where household expenses and housing costs are probably lower than three or four of the states with a higher bar for being "bottom quintile". It also helps if you don't have entrenched poor communities, and are extremely culturally homogenous (meaning that those with power and money are far more likely to identify with and support the bottom quartile of people since they mostly share the same cultural and religious identity). In other words, Utah is so different than the counterexample states that making facile comparisons of "education spending per pupil" and concluding that "big government is not the solution" is a ridiculous argument to make.

wang_li 10y ago
It might be ridiculous but not for the reasons you state. All those differences are the result of culture and governance.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Two points: 1. You're wrong about it being just culture and governance -- history and geography play a big role in why we see things developed as they are. 2. Even if it were, your comment is useless. You claim it's culture and governance, not just governance. With part of it being cultural homogeneity (as the GP said...), which is itself a quirk of history and geography, it doesn't follow that changing governance to match would lead to the same outcomes, since cultures wouldn't match (and likely be less homogeneous).
ythn 10y ago
> It also helps if you don't have entrenched poor communities Even still, the article does address this - "another economics professor at Brigham Young told me that his church ward had recently deliberately expanded its boundaries to include a nearby trailer park." I think this is a key ingredient to effective upward mobility: mixing of social classes. If you have setting multiple times a a week (church) where entrenched poor (trailer park) can mingle and interact with middle and upper class, that's a huge boon for the poor. Simply giving money to the poor in the form of an impersonal government check on the other hand is very ineffective.
VLM 10y ago
If the result of a successful anti-poverty program is not wealthier people at the bottom, then what is it, with respect to your claim that the result is actually the cause of the anti-poverty program success? What does it mean to "solve poverty" while not having the folks at the bottom have more money?

wang_li 10y ago

It might be ridiculous but not for the reasons you state. All those differences are the result of culture and governance.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
Two points: 1. You're wrong about it being just culture and governance -- history and geography play a big role in why we see things developed as they are. 2. Even if it were, your comment is useless. You claim it's culture and governance, not just governance. With part of it being cultural homogeneity (as the GP said...), which is itself a quirk of history and geography, it doesn't follow that changing governance to match would lead to the same outcomes, since cultures wouldn't match (and likely be less homogeneous).

ythn 10y ago

> It also helps if you don't have entrenched poor communities Even still, the article does address this - "another economics professor at Brigham Young told me that his church ward had recently deliberately expanded its boundaries to include a nearby trailer park." I think this is a key ingredient to effective upward mobility: mixing of social classes. If you have setting multiple times a a week (church) where entrenched poor (trailer park) can mingle and interact with middle and upper class, that's a huge boon for the poor. Simply giving money to the poor in the form of an impersonal government check on the other hand is very ineffective.

VLM 10y ago

If the result of a successful anti-poverty program is not wealthier people at the bottom, then what is it, with respect to your claim that the result is actually the cause of the anti-poverty program success? What does it mean to "solve poverty" while not having the folks at the bottom have more money?